Month: October 2019

My research question of the small-n neopositivist research is “Why does Christian religious peacebuilding intervention and prevention differ in conflicts within Latin America?”

With this question I want to use Latin America as an area of focus, in order to research how and why religious peacebuilding varies in different countries in Latin America. The dependent variable in this question is type of religious invention in peacebuilding, which would be measured in type of peacemaking method.[1] This would be measured in no involvement, traditional diplomatic efforts, track II peace-making, and field-diplomacy. [2] These methods to peace making are evaluated and further explained in Luc Reychler’s work.[3]

Primary sources to operationalize the dependent variable would include looking at the Vatican News to follow church news and involvement in Latin America.[4] This information can provide specific news about the involvement of the Catholic Church in Latin America, which has a major presence and role in Latin America. The news can outline different ways that the Catholic Church is becoming involved in affairs within Latin America.[5] Another primary source that would also be used to operationalize the dependent variable would be to look at statements and peacebuilding actions of the secretariat of state in the Vatican.[6] This can outline the overall goals and feelings of the Catholic Church regarding specific aspects of peacebuilding or conflicts, which can be checked with other sources to see the future action of lack of action aligns with statements from the secretariat of state.[7] To see the recent events occurring in Latin America, from a more secular perspective and to see news events that involve other Christian denominations El País is a source that can be used. [8]

Using each of these sources allows the actions of Christian institutions, especially the Catholic Church, to be tracked and studied in this research.

 

[1] Reychler, Luc. “RELIGION AND CONFLICT.” International Journal of Peace Studies 2, no. 1 (1997): http://www.jstor.org/stable/45037971, 20.

[2] Ibid, 20.

[3] Ibid, 19.

[4] “Secretariat of State – Index.” n.d. Accessed October 27, 2019. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/index.htm.

[5] Ibid.

[6] “The Latin American Church Joins Pope’s Appeal for Peace in Syria – Vatican News.” 2018. April 16, 2018. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2018-04/latin-american-bishops-statements-appeal-peace-syria.html.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Luzón, Javier Moreno. 2019. “Análisis | ‘Por Dios y por España.’” El País, October 24, 2019, sec. Opinion. https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/22/opinion/1571757065_935118.html.

 

Bibliography

Luzón, Javier Moreno. 2019. “Análisis | ‘Por Dios y por España.’” El País, October 24, 2019, sec. Opinion. https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/22/opinion/1571757065_935118.html.

Reychler, Luc. “RELIGION AND CONFLICT.” International Journal of Peace Studies 2, no. 1 (1997): 19-38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45037971.

“Secretariat of State – Index.” n.d. Accessed October 27, 2019. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/index.htm.

“The Latin American Church Joins Pope’s Appeal for Peace in Syria – Vatican News.” 2018. April 16, 2018. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2018-04/latin-american-bishops-statements-appeal-peace-syria.html.

 

I am proposing to research religious institutions and peacebuilding because I want to find out what explains what motivates religious actors to become involved in the peacebuilding process in order to help my reader understand whether and to what degree religious actors should become involved in conflicts.

 

Research question: What explains the variation in the involvement of religious institutions in peacebuilding efforts?

 

1. “Global Totals of religious populations by religion”

This first source shows the percentage of religious within the population of every religion in the world and also shows the percentage of the world population that number constitutes.[1] This source can be used to understand the influence that religions have in the world in regard to the percentage of the world population.[2] This number can be expanded to see the percent population within a particular country or region as well.[3] This information is an important dependent variable to see if there is a statistically relevant relationship between conflicts and percentage of religions. A limitation to this source is that it only looks at the percent of religious globally and not by country.

 

2. “Religious Conflict by Country”

This statistical data shows countries that have experienced religious conflict.[4] It looks at the religious freedom index, governmental restriction index, religious conflict, state religion, and other factors.[5] Using this data with the data about the percentage of the religious within populations, research can be done to see if correlation exists between the two statistics. I also want to specifically look at the state religion where the conflicts are occurring (whether a state is a theocracy or if the state has a national religion). This information will help identify important dependent variables within religious conflicts (like state religion, places where religious conflicts occur, and others), but other statistical sources are needed to show similar evidence about non-religious conflicts. The combination of religious and secular conflicts will give a wider variation to understand the complexity of conflicts. This source is limited because it only considers religious conflicts.

 

Overall, this research would compare conflict between countries and within the same country to gain a diverse set of conflicts.

[1] Boston University, Global Totals of Religious Populations by Religion, 2015, Distributed by the Institute of Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, https://libguides.webster.edu/data/chicago.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Boston University, Religious Conflict by Country, 2015, Distributed by the Institute of Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, https://libguides.webster.edu/data/chicago.

[5] Ibid.

Bibliography

Boston University. Religious Conflict by Country. 2015. Distributed by the Institute of Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. https://libguides.webster.edu/data/chicago.

Boston University. Global Totals of Religious Populations by Religion. 2015. Distributed by the Institute of Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. https://libguides.webster.edu/data/chicago.